Captain Rick Pollock: Part 4

In the conclusion of this series of features profiling Rick Pollock – arguably New Zealand’s best-known charter skipper – Mark Kitteridge provides a personal perspective on this living legend…

There have been very few charter operations I would willingly pay for, but the combination of Rick Pollock and the good ship Pursuit proved irresistible. Indeed, I was a regular customer of Rick’s for over 30 years!

Sure, there are a handful of charter skippers who can rightly claim superiority when it comes to some particular sport-fishing elements or qualities, but for all-round skills, attitude, durability and service, no one beats Rick as far as I’m concerned. He is The Man.

So what does it take to get to the top of the charter-fishing pile?

Innovation and versatility

Rick was always willing to try new things or take advantage of unusual situations, with his experiences from fishing around the world often helping him to implement effective approaches when unfamiliar but worthwhile fishing opportunities occurred.

The first example of this that comes to mind has been named “The Three Kings ‘picket fence’”. When I think of fishing the King Bank with Rick, one of the most enduring memories is all of us lining up along one side to deploy big livebaits on a variety of alternating (to prevent tangles) free-swimming, weighted and floated rigs for big kingfish and marlin. In the process, we also encountered a variety of sharks, along with hapuku and bass, making for thoroughly entertaining and interesting sessions.

Some big bass have been taken on board Pursuit over the years. Shane Dufaur with one of the better ones.

Rick started fishing this way in the early 1990s, after a black marlin, then a striped marlin, grabbed tarakihi being retrieved at the Middlesex Bank on successive days. A light went on in Rick’s head: if the marlin were willing to take tarakihi, surely a livebait such as a big mackerel would be even more attractive! So it began, and the more Rick and his crew practised this technique, the better the results became. One of the biggest advances occurred when the mackerel baits were replaced by the bigger and harder-to-resist koheru, also enabling heavier trace material and bigger hooks to be used.

Rick's 'pets': a tankful of mackerel and koheru get fatter (and wiser) on Rick's diet of scrambled eggs and leftover bait. 

My friends and I enjoyed some mind-blowing action when fishing with Rick this way, including tagging and releasing seven marlin in one day (one of several seven-marlin days he’s had over the years), with several big kingfish to 35kg and some tough sharks adding to the day’s chaos. A highlight/lowlight of that session occurred when we hooked a double of marlin – one a stripy, the other a suspected black. Unfortunately, they raced away in opposite directions, with the black marlin eventually spooling our unlucky angler despite Rick’s best efforts at the helm.

A memorable day: this double hook-up of marlin - a black and a stripey - was encountered during a seven-marlin day at the King Bank. Unfortunately, the black marlin eventually spooled Dave Joy (left).

Another innovative method involved anchoring up at the ‘Mud Bank’ out from the Motu River entrance and fishing for yellowfin tuna. Rick admits he can’t really recall if it was initially his idea or good friend, decky and second skipper Paul Kingi’s, but it proved to be genius. I remember taking advantage of this one morning before sun-up, setting three livebaits out: one towed a flashy, rattling float, another was lightly weighted and swam deeper down, while the third, a free-swimming version, I held and controlled. By the time the other guys got up for breakfast, I had three reasonable tuna on the deck – and lucky I had company by then because I had a double hook-up soon after!

Rick helped to introduce or improve several other exciting techniques (see the previous three features profiling him, for more), including cubing for yellowfin, attracting flying fish at night (along with the accompanying kingfish) and deploying small livebaits for mahimahi.

The third on the list of Rick’s innovations for me is berleying for monster trevally and kingfish at White Island and the Three Kings Islands. This thoroughly entertaining activity was generally saved for rough or demanding conditions and allowed both light and heavy gear to be used. It was invariably a highlight for me, as soft-bait and salt-fly gear were well suited to the scenario – what a blast!

Rick was still hanging over Pursuit's side to thumb-lock and lift kings in for tagging well into his late sixties.

Similarly, Rick always made sure that we were prepared to take advantage of all realistic possibilities. Did we have a livebait rod ready for marlin? Did we have a jigging outfit prepared for albacore or yellowfin? With that sort of thing, it always paid to listen to Rick!

Been there, done that...

You can’t beat experience on the water for coming to the best decisions, and Rick is prime example of this – especially as he was always an avid taker of notes!

This meant he generally knew where to fish in the existing conditions and where the best anchorages would be for the night. He also had an uncanny knack for identifying particularly large fish early in the initial run and what species they were from their movements afterwards.

For example, we were once anchored up on the edge of a steep East Coast drop-off for a berleying and cubing session. The main attraction of this spot was that almost anything was possible, from snapper, kahawai and kingfish through to sharks and hapuku. I was using an 8kg stray-line rig when I hooked something powerful – I suspected a nice kingfish. However, Rick watched for about a minute then made his pronouncement: “I think you’ve got a yellowfin there, Mark.” And, sure enough, that’s what it turned out to be.

Another time I watched a small black fin come racing into our lure spread to grab the closest lure. It looked like a small mako to me, and I said so, but as the reel started howling, Rick immediately said: “That’s a big fish there, boys!”

Sometime later, a big black marlin was brought to the surface for release.

A never-say-die attitude

Rick would often be even keener than us to keep fishing, encouraging us to persist if he believed it was worthwhile, and we often reaped the benefits. However, Rick’s level of perseverance and enthusiasm did tend to reflect the efforts and hopes of his customers: if you did your best to make the best of the situation, so did he.

Rick also refused to give up on anglers hooked to particularly large or stubborn fish, even when the battles dragged on for many hours (32 hours was the longest he was involved in) and things looked hopeless to the rest of us. Sure, he did offer ultimatums to the angler involved at times, but these suggestions were always shaped by his many years on the water chasing big fish. If Rick said the angler needed to go to ‘sunset’ on the drag to have any chance, it wasn’t because his patience had run out, it was because this provided the best chance for a successful outcome. He could also be blunt to the point of outright rudeness, but again this was usually strategic: anger can be a surprisingly effective motivator for tired and dispirited fishers!

A refusal to back down

Rick always stood up for his principles and convictions. He wasn’t afraid of intense verbal and physical confrontations and never backed down, taking on men considerably bigger than him, as well as much larger vessels than Pursuit if necessary. I remember becoming involved in some high-speed manoeuvres after Rick reached boiling point while watching two super-seiners mopping up all the skipjack, potentially wrecking yet another promising looking gamefish season. While we didn’t ultimately stop these huge boats from catching lots of the small tuna, we were certainly a nuisance to them for a while, and it vented some of our frustration and anger.

This same courage (and experience) also proved invaluable when coming in through the Whakatane Bar in very rough conditions. At such times, the Whakatane locals often came down, lining the entrance and channel to watch the ‘entertainment’. Upon seeing the lines of huge swells seemingly crashing right across the entrance and obliterating the coastline, a mix of fear, excitement and adrenaline often surged through me, but I always had absolute faith in Rick’s ability to get us back in safely. He told me it was sometimes necessary to ‘get mad’ at the intimidating conditions, before going for it, reversing most of the way in, spinning around at the right moment and, if necessary, charging through a minuscule gap between the jagged rocks called ‘the dinghy channel’ at full noise!

Built tough!

This guy is really tough, mentally and physically. Prior to Pursuit (version 2), Rick often had to sleep under the dining table, so all his guests had a berth. As anyone who’s done multi-day stay-away trips will tell you, some people like to stay up and chat and drink into the small hours in the saloon, so I can only imagine what that cost Rick in lost sleep at times. Rick also spent hundreds, even thousands, of nights in the shelter of White Island, a live volcano. At times, clouds of ash would settle on the boat and any occupants fishing throughout the night would suffer, choking and burning their eyes, throat and lungs. While the recent White Island tragedy might make this seem foolhardy, it was simply a frequent and unpleasant experience at the time. Rick endured this, despite the acidic ash taking its toll on the boat’s many metal components, forcing intensive cleaning after each trip – and at a personal cost too, as he suffered from occasional breathing difficulties.

Rough weather often plays a significant part in fishing-charter life, and when you’re forced to make as many back-to-back trips as Rick was, it can take a massive physical toll. As his customers, we frequently had to ‘pay’ to get to where the desired fishing was and pound into big seas. Occasionally I wondered why I was paying hundreds of dollars a day to be battered for hours on end. But hard as it was for us on deck and in the saloon, Rick was receiving twice the punishment up on the flying bridge! I still can’t believe he occasionally had to endure this for days on end, but when I brought this aspect up, he simply said, “Auto Pilot is a wonderful thing, Mark! Also, I’m fine on my own and don’t need company to be entertained. Rough weather is just part of the job.”

I certainly saw the consequences of this punishing lifestyle prior to loading our gear on board Pursuit at times, finding Rick grey from mental and physical exhaustion following days of rough weather and sleepless nights. Yet he always summoned up a welcoming smile and put a brave face on it, even when it looked as if nature was going to kick our butts again.

But what’s especially incredible is that Rick didn’t just do this for 10 or 20 years, and he didn’t do this for 80-200 days each year, as most other operators tend to do (before burning out and calling it a day); he managed to maintain this pace for around 250-300 days each year for 35 years. That’s truly astonishing!

Having the right deckhands

The sea is a big, unforgiving place, and the boat can feel very small and confined, so a good relationship between skipper and crew is critical, especially on multi-day trips. Rick was always hardworking and professional, and he expected his deckhands to be the same. A deckhand’s lot tends to be tough but rewarding when done properly, but Pursuit’s crew members raised the bar to a whole new level, often having to make back-to-back trips in seemingly never-ending gnarly conditions with little sleep to recharge their batteries.

Fortunately, Rick was excellent at recognising potential and getting the best from his crew, invariably choosing young, intelligent, enthusiastic guys with a good sense of humour.

As time went on, some great relationships often developed, with lots of good-natured banter and practical jokes involved, especially when the fishing was hot, or, conversely, when very little was going on. Yes, as already mentioned, Rick was demanding, but in return, his deckhands were armed with some exceptional skills, along with a great work ethic and attitude that enabled them to eventually skipper their own boats or go overseas to even bigger and better things.

A teller of stories

When you’ve been at sea for as long as Rick has and met as many different and interesting people, nature and life can create all manner of memorable experiences. Consequently, although Rick has hung up his charter skippers ticket, he has a massive treasure trove of tales and enjoys sharing them.

I’ve been listening to Rick’s tales for more than three decades now, and during that time many have been polished, honed and perfected. Some less charitable folk might maintain the odd one has been exaggerated and manipulated to the point it now only vaguely resembles the original occurrence, but I couldn’t possibly comment on that. After all, this is the man who came on Radio Bay of Plenty 1XX every day at 9:20 am and brought the whole Whakatane township to a standstill as the occupants listened, spellbound, to all the weird, wacky, interesting and amazing things happening in Rick’s watery world for almost 28 years.

So long Rick, and thanks for all the fish!

It has been my pleasure, privilege and honour to write about some of Rick Pollock’s life at sea. After all, it’s been Rick, the superb skipper, the impressive angler, the doting father, the wise teacher, the mischievous prankster and the valued friend, who provided me and thousands of other anglers with some of our best fishing catches, memories and experiences over thirty long, hard, wonderful years. Yes, I’m so sorry it’s finally come to an end, but who knows, maybe our paths will meet up again. So good luck for the future, Rick, and whatever the coming years might bring, may your seas be smooth – you sure deserve them!